For the first part of this article go to Gurus: The Good the Bad and the Ugly Part 1

The Bad and the Ugly

Now as I wrote about last time there seems to be enormous power behind committing to a goal, but don’t let it get too far. Sales tactics employed by gurus often involve implying that if you don’t sign up for their courses or buy their books then you aren’t committing to your goals and you won’t be able to reach them.

They try to put you in a bind, which isn’t really fair if you can’t afford it. I’ve had people try to encourage me to take out loans or use my credit card to sign up for courses costing thousands of pounds. Not a nice thing to do in my opinion.I wonder how many people get in to financial difficulty because they fail to think critically in a situation where their emotions have been pumped up.

To be honest, at some seminars I see people that haven’t smiled or felt good in years. When someone gives them permission to be happy they go all out. It’s fun to watch but they have to realise that the guru didn’t wave his magic wand and make them change. They did it themselves. It’s a bit of a head-trip when you find out how much we are in control of ourselves and how much control we willingly give away. For example when I first became interested in hypnosis I thought it was the hypnotist who was doing something to his client, then I realised that it’s the client that is doing all the work. I was a little bit disappointed at first, I thought hypnosis was a sham… until the full implications hit me.

Some people feel disappointed when they hear that a person they respect or look up to has done something they don’t approve of. No matter how succesfull they appear to be they are still humans. Infidelity, drug-use / abuse and bankruptcy will occur in their lives in the same proportions as the total population.

If you are disappointed it can be an indicator that you are investing too much into another person. At the end of the day you should only take on board what is useful for you and discard what is not. You are responsible for your own life as they are for theirs. Learn to separate the message from the person delivering it otherwise you’ll leave yourself open to disappointment and disillusion.

Finally be wary of any organisations that encourage cult like behaviour. This usually includes separating you from your family, not allowing any disagreement with the leaders, pressure to recruit new customers / clients, coercion into donating more and more money or your free time to their cause.

A feature of the personal-development scene (though present in all areas of human society) is the guru, a revered leader who has attained power, influence and followers. To be honest I hate the idea of a guru. I have respect for a lot of people but I don’t revere anyone. The reality however is that a lot of people have gurus whether they call them by that name or not.

Becoming a guru can happen in different ways; by merit, through contingency, convention or simply because they can. Examples are Richard Bandler, Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra or Ken Wilber. These people are praised for being great teachers or for having deep wisdom. Others point out that they don’t always practice what they preach or even worse they are accused of being charlatans. In two articles I’ll look at what there is to learn from gurus.

The Good

One of the best books I’ve read is Influence: Science and Practice by Rober Cialdini. It was was part of my Psychology course and really opened my eyes to some of the behaviour exhibited by people. Now obviously the information in this book is presented in a way that it teaches you to either become better at persuasion, or to defend yourself against it. However the real eye-opener is the extent to which people are constantly allowing themselves to be lead (and I know I do it often enough myself). Thinking for yourself is hard work. We’d much rather other people do it for us.

Two principles from Cialdini’s book stand out for me. The power of social proof and the principle of commitment and consistency. The first is the idea that people will look to others for cues on how to behave and what to think. I can imagine why this would have been useful back in the day. If everyone else is running away from the sabre-tooth tiger maybe you should as well. Now this is just a heuristic. A basic rule of thumb that applies often enough, but not always.

In the example of a guru, the fact that a lot of people think that he is a guru must mean that he has the value to back it up right? A lot of people will say that isn’t necessarily true. But it’s at this stage that you have to think a step further. The fact that he or she is able to manoeuvre themselves into a position where they can take advantage of this points to the fact that they have the necessary communication skills, access to resources and networks.

So Tony Robbins could indeed be a cheesy over the top con-artist but the fact is that he is a famous motivational speaker means that he is doing something right. Now whether these behaviours and ways of thinking are useful for you or the world is something you have to decide for yourself. It could be that all the most ‘successful’ behaviours humans are actually leading us down a path of self-destruction, but then maybe that’s Nature / Gaia fixing a broken part of the eco-system.

The second principle I find interesting is that of commitment and consistency. People experience cognitive dissonance when they hold to contradictory behaviours, ideas or beliefs in their mind at once. That feels uncomfortable unless you’ve evolved into a zen-monk who accepts the non-exclusive duality of the universe.

If a person commits verbally or in writing to a goal then they will much more often follow through on it. That’s why it’s always such a good idea to write down your goals and tell everyone about them. I told everyone I was going to do a bungy jump in New Zealand, so I knew I couldn’t back out of it.

If people go against their word this would mean they think and act inconsistently. It would be very confusing and frustrating if we were constantly battling against ourselves to act the way we intend to. Now I know a lot of us are dealing with procrastination and lack of self-discipline but I’m talking on a level where you can not make an inference on what will happen as a result of your will. Complete random behaviour every single time.

Now the commitment and consistency principle is obviously used by gurus to get us committed to our goals, and to buying stuff from them. If we don’t commit we will leave ourselves a way out. Like the Greeks you burn your ships so you have no choice but to move towards your goal.

The crazy thing is that this opens up the possibility that you could follow a guru’s 12 step programme to becoming super motivated, commit to behaving that way and then actually achieve it through amongst other things the commitment to make it work and the fact that no one as smart as you would do something that doesn’t work. Like Dumbo you’ll be able fly A) Because you 100% believe you can and B) Because you take the leap of faith and leave yourself no room for any other possibility (except utter failure). Of course there is the danger that you’ll have some doubt not commit 100%, fail to burn all your boats and fall flat on your face like Neo when he failed to jump to the next sky-scraper. I think most of us are in the second category.

I think there is definitely something useful to investigate. It’s obvious that throughout history people have banded together and been effective in more than a mere sum of their individual powers would suggest. Can this only be done when we are following gurus and leaders? Or can we create that state in ourselves and not give away our individuality and self-determination?

Here is a video of Don Beck speaking at the UN. You can find more videos of him speaking on YouTube.

Don Beck and Chris Cowan wrote a book called Spiral Dynamics based on work by Clare Graves. Spiral Dynamics is a theory of human development. The theory is that when humans are faced by more complex life conditions they evolve more sophisticated models to deal with the those conditions. Not only do our bodies evolve but so do our minds and in turn the collective consciousness of societies.When people say that we need to evolve a higher consciousness they usually mean that we need to step up to the next level of the holarchical-model (holarchy). The reason is as Einstein often quoted saying goes is because: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Environmental destruction and war are brought about by lower level thinking. Fighting for perceived to be scarce rescources is a useful strategy when you are a hunter-gatherer but it’s not the most useful strategy at this point. The thinking that created that strategy is outdated.Some people find it difficult to conceive of ‘higer consciousness’. What does it mean? I think one way to illustrate it is to think of an instance where a problem is solved in a highly original way. This could be Ghandi practising non-violent protest or a football player beating a defender in way that no-one could have imagined.

You’ll know when you’re operating on a higher level when someone sees you do something and exclaims: ‘That’s impossible!’

You can see the Great Wall of China from space… not!

Why do certain ideas persist even though they are not true?

The answers are in this great book I’m reading called Made to Stick which is all about why certain ideas seem to really take off and how you can change your communication to make it more sticky. It’s a great companion to the Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell.

I’ve already used some of the ideas in it to write part of a flyer I’m designing with a friend. We’ll see how it goes.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either “true” or “false.” Among those identified as false were statements such as “The side effects are worse than the flu” and “Only older people need flu vaccine.”When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.

This article highlights something useful to know about the mind. You can’t not think about something. For example, don’t think of a pink elephant on ice-skates… too late you just did. This is one of the fundamental ideas behind affirmations and positive thinking. Also it’s supposed to be helpful for teaching purposes, tell people what they should be doing rather than what they shouldn’t. For example: ‘Make sure to look both ways before you cross the road’ in stead of ‘Don’t run across the road without looking’.

Find the rest at the Washington Post.